Vote YES for the Bonney Lake Metropolitan Park District (MPD) on April 23, 2013 - Part 8

In a recent conversation with a long time resident, he commented on what the parks were offering residents during the recession, how parks can help improve health and enhance the quality of life while they can also improve property values. 

So let’s talk about the Bonney Lake events calendar and what it has offered for the past few years. I’m attaching a link to the City of Bonney Lake Special Events website so you can see what’s being offered this year: http://www.citybonneylake.org/section_community/parks_recreation/special_events.shtml.  This list is very similar to what’s been offered throughout the recession with all events being FREE, staged right here in Bonney Lake, so you don’t have to drive long distances. For the past few years some of the events, like Kids Club, were staged at Cedarview Park while Tunes at Tapps, Friday Night Flicks and others were held at Allan Yorke Park. This provided for a good distribution of activities and made sure that both parks were being used and maintained. In other words, it was Bonney Lake’s way of helping all of us out during a down economy.

Unfortunately, maintenance is suffering in our parks. Take some time to look around while you’re at them, check the restrooms, look at the fields, and the playground equipment. Some of our buildings need new roofs and paint jobs, plumbing repairs or updated equipment, cement steps and picnic tables at one park have been damaged, some plants have been ripped out and not replaced, and the list goes on. Since the current city budget allocates funds for park operations and maintenance, it is still not adequate to keep up with the care that is needed. The money’s earned from the boat launch, the cell phone tower in the park, or the park facility rentals, all go into the city’s general fund. That makes these funds available to a multitude of other needs and not dedicated to the maintenance and operation of our parks.

The other night I posted a link to a story from Melbourne Australia that talked about a study they’ve done that shows how trails and parks can improve the health of the residents. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130307124427.htm#.UU0aKxhmWiQ.email. As I commented on blog 7a “The ten year study found that the overall health of residents of new housing developments in Western Australia, improved when their daily walking increased as a result of more access to parks, public transport, shops and services.”  Terry Reid commented on blog 4 ““Where we live, learn, work, and play can have a greater impact on how long and how well we live than medical care.” – Terry, went on to say that “Easy and ready access to parks, trails and recreation facilities make a real difference in the level of physical activity for all age groups. A recent study focused on what types of things make communities more conducive to being physically active. For adults, it’s all about having good places to walk. Nearly 60% of active adults are walkers. The single factor most likely to influence them was if there were safe and pleasant places for walking”  

In blog 6 I talked about the seminar for city planners and planning commissioners that my wife and I attended that dealt with Economic Development, and how all three speakers stressed the fact that parks and the arts are a vital element in the economic well being of a community.  

We have a great park at Allan Yorke, with so many different facilities and activities available.  All of the great FREE events are being held there, but what would it be like if our population of 17,000 decided to visit Allan Yorke at the same time to cool off on a hot summer day or attend Tunes at Tapps? What a disaster that could be. We don’t have adequate parking for the people that are using it now and certainly don’t have the space, or facilities to accommodate even a quarter of us at one time. Allan Yorke is the only park that offers such a variety of recreational opportunities. We are not fully utilizing other park lands that could spread out our activities and give some relief to an overused park.

What the Metropolitan Park District could do for us has been pointed out on our web pages: www.BLParks.org and www.yesmpd.com, and we have also tried to highlight most of these on our Facebook site. I’ll restate just a few of the possible benefits from a Metropolitan Park District here:

• Dedicated monies for park and recreation which does NOT compete with higher priority Police and Street funding.
• Park bond alone would NOT provide for operations and maintenance, an MPD will.
• Bonney Lake has held back on taxing avenues such as a B&O tax or a license tab fee, unlike other cities in our county.
• There is a shortage of Parks, Trails, and a Community Center with a pool and can ONLY be fixed with additional revenues.
• A Sports Complex may bring revenue to our businesses from outside Leagues visiting and renting the new fields.
• The average household will pay about $10, or so per month, or less than one latter per week. (To find out how much you may be obligated to pay please check out the city calculator site and input your current property valuation, here’s the link: http://www.ci.bonney-lake.wa.us/section_government/property_tax_allocator.shtml)
• All MPD money by State law must be spent on parks and recreation and can NOT be used in the General Fund.
• There are only 55 acres of developed parks for a population of more than 17,000. (The bulk of this is Allan Yorke Park.)
• There has never been a City Parks Department in Bonney Lake.
• Bonds cannot pay for operations and maintenance of parks.

In closing this afternoon and with a fantastic rainbow shining in the east and the sun finally coming out in the west, I’d like to say that while I’m asking you to vote for and approve a Metropolitan Park District on April 23, 2013, in no way am I, or are any of us on the YES MPD committee, guaranteeing that you’ll get trails, a community center, sports fields, or a sports complex when the MPD is approved. That ability is not within our purview. That is a decision that will be made by the MPD board members (City Council members). No one on the YES MPD committee stands to make anything from the approval of the MPD, other than the benefit of knowing that we’ve done something to help our kids, grand kids, fellow residents, and even ourselves to possibly live a healthier, more fulfilling lifestyle and that will be benefit enough.

I originally wrote this on Thursday and it’s now Saturday afternoon and I just finished observing another fantastic Easter egg hunt at Allan Yorke Park. Lots of people, even more kids and the biggest problem is it was too many people converging on too few parking spaces in a very short time so things got crazy here for a while, we observed some parents parking partially in the street and leaving their car there while they took the kids to the egg hunt. Not a very safe move. If a Metropolitan Park District is approved could this make some needed changes? We won’t know until after we’ve approved the MPD on April 23, 2013.

You should be receiving your ballot within the next week, or so, and I encourage each and every one of you to vote your conscience and when you’ve completed your ballots either drop them in the mail, or drop them off in the Voter drop box located at the Bonney Lake Park & Ride behind Wendy’s. I hope that like me, you’ll vote to approve the Metropolitan Park District.

Thanks for your time.